There are good points in his poem, showing close observation, good sense, and excellent judgment. His rules of farm-practice are entirely safe and judicious, and make one wonder how the man who could give such capital advice could make so capital a failure. In the secret lies all the philosophy of the difference between knowledge and practice. The instance is not without its modern support: I have the honor of acquaintance with several gentlemen who lay down charming rules for successful husbandry, every time they pay the country a visit; and yet even their poultry-account is always largely against the constipated hens. What is specially remarkable about Tusser is his air of entire resignation amid all manner of vicissitudes: he does not seem to count his hardships either wonderful or intolerable or unmerited. He tells us of the thrashing he had at Eton, (fifty-four licks,) without greatly impugning the head-master; and his shiftlessness in life makes us strongly suspect that he deserved it all. Fuller, in his "Worthies," says Tusser "spread his bread with all sorts of butter, yet none would stick thereon." In short, though the poet wrote well on farm-practice, he certainly was not a good exemplar of farm-successes. With all his excellent notions about sowing and reaping, and rising with the lark, I should look for a little more of stirring mettle and of dogged resolution in a man to be recommended as a tenant. I cannot help thinking less of him as a farmer than as a kind-hearted poet; too soft of the edge to cut very deeply into hard-pan, and too porous and flimsy of character for any compacted resolve: yet taking life tenderly, withal; good to those poorer than himself; making a rattling appeal for Christmas charities; hospitable, cheerful, and looking always to the end with an honest clearness of vision:-- "To death we must stoop, be we high, be we low, But how, and how suddenly, few be that know, What carry we, then, but a sheet to the grave, (To cover this carcass,) of all that we have?" * * * * *